


What Did You Do?

by nagi_schwarz



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-29 22:45:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11450622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: AU on 4x03. What if Mary remembered what Dean Van Halen had told her? And what if she listened to his advice?Originally posted onLJin 2013.





	What Did You Do?

  
When Mary Campbell was still in high school, a lone hunter named Dean Van Halen came through Lawrence tracking the demon who'd killed his mother. He told her something she never forgot, though it made little sense.

He told her, on November 2, 1983, not to get out of bed, no matter what she heard.

And then he went to fight a yellow-eyed demon. Mary jumped into the fray because the demon was after one of her friends, and in the middle of the fisticuffs, the demon paused, smiled at her, said he liked her. She never did figure out what the demon meant by that. Then it killed her parents.

She married John Winchester and left the hunting life behind. She had two sons, named Dean after her mother and Sam after her father. Dean had soft blond hair and bright green eyes, and there was something familiar in his smile. Sam was a chubby bundle of giggles, and on November 2, 1983, he was six months old.

Mary remembered, and she stayed in bed. She heard Sam gurgling on the baby monitor, but he didn't sound distressed. Then he started to cry. Mary remembered Mr. Van Halen's words and refused to get up, but John could go check on the baby instead. Only he wasn't beside her in bed. He'd probably fallen asleep in front of the TV again.

When Sam's cries turned to wails, Mary couldn't stand it any longer. She threw the covers aside and stood up, and she went into the nursery. Sam kicked and fussed, shaking his tiny fists. Mary scooped him up, tried to hush him. Sam immediately curled against her, calming, and Mary smiled, relaxed. Then Sam writhed, wailing more, and Mary hoisted him higher, cooed at him.

That was when she saw the fresh blood splattered on his forehead.

Mary smoothed it away, searching for a wound, but there was none. Blood dripped onto the back of her hand.

She frowned, confused, and looked up.

John was pinned to the ceiling, mouth open in a silent scream.

Fire consumed him, and then the rest of the room.

Mary turned and ran. She tore down the hallway, Sam clutched close, and dragged Dean from bed. She stood on the grass, her sons close about her, and watched her beautiful, normal life go up in flames.

After the funeral, she called her cousins and said she was back in the life. They welcomed her with open arms and sympathy for her less, and they put her to work. Sam and Dean grew up surrounded by the Campbell family, cousins and aunts and uncles on hand to love them and train them. Thanksgiving one year was pushed back a few days while everyone rallied to clear out a nest of vetala, but Mary's boys still got to taste their grandmother's famous candied yam recipe. Sam was as stubborn as his father but quick to learn lore and languages, eager to look something up while Mary was on the road tracking electrical storms and cattle mutilations. Dean had inherited the Campbell quickness, strength, and was just as good bare-knuckled as he was with a gun. Something about the curl of his fingers around a gun, the way he moved in combat, was familiar, but Mary could never quite say why.

Mary was desperately proud of them and heartbroken at the normalcy they never got to have.

After Dean graduated from high school, he hit the road with his cousin Christian, and Mary didn't see him for months at a time. He called to check up on Sam, who was navigating dating with the same enthusiasm he tackled hunting research (with weapons, Latin, and a few protective charms), and he always said he was fine, but Mary had long ago learned to hear suppressed pain in his voice. After a particularly bad run-in with a pack of werewolves, Christian and Dean retreated to the Campbell home base to lie low and heal up.

Christian staggered through the front door, clutching his ribs but laughing uproariously. "Seriously, Dean? 'Agent Van Halen'? That was the best you could come up with?"

"It's better than 'Agent Malarkey', which isn't even a name," Dean shot back. He had a bandage around his forehead; it was seeping dark blood.

"Someone's going to catch onto the classic rock game eventually," Sam said. He was sitting at the kitchen table, poring over the Key of Solomon.

Dean stepped into Mary's embrace, tucking his chin against her shoulder, and when had he gotten so tall? Then he stepped back and grinned at her, the same devil-may-care grin John had had.

"It's kinda catchy, isn't it, Mom? Agent Dean Van Halen. It rocks. Literally." He laughed at his own pun, and his cousin and brother joined in.

The name ricocheted down Mary's spine, and she looked up at her son. He was older now, stronger, had cut his hair somewhere along the way, and she could see how, in a few short years, he would be the man who'd followed her and her boyfriend to the diner all those years ago.

_That demon killed my mom,_  he'd said. Mary turned away, stared at her own reflection in the kitchen window, and wondered,  _Dean, what did you do?_  



End file.
